The Good Brother

25

Thunder in the mountains meant the threat of lightning rather than the relief of rain. Day by day, Joe knew where the worst fires were by the hazy darkness of the sky. Communities were being evacuated near Missoula, but the ranch was safe. Coop was weak and often slept in a chair facing the CB unit. Two police scanners monitored the airwaves for official transmission. The combined sounds of the three machines reminded Joe of wind and water and rustling leaves.

The family saw no one but each other. They communicated by radio with their nearest neighbors who were in turn linked to people farther up and down the valley. The Bills were living battle-ready, alert to any change.

Botree received a message that Johnny was fine, and could be reached by radioing a man who worked at the Wolf. Late at night, Frank began broadcasting from the mountains nearby, long taunts of the government forces he felt certain were preparing to attack. As Coop listened, he drew possible routes of attack and escape on his topographical maps, blotting the soft brown and green lines with his own overlapping network of heavy black. As one map became illegible, he started another. He ate little and refused to bathe.

After a week, Joe went to the bunkhouse for dehydrated food, but it was empty of all supplies, including sheets and dishes. His boots echoed like distant gunfire. Mice had gnawed the Liberty Teeth pamphlets and Joe carried them outside. The autumn sun made his eyes hurt. He siphoned gas from his Jeep onto the pile, and lit a match, The paper ignited and coils of smoke joined the brown sides above.

Joe kicked a tower of ash, which exploded into tiny black pieces that spread rapidly through the air. He jumped into the fire and began stomping the fragments of burnt paper. Ash and smoke whirled around him. He worked in a frenzy as if trying to grind the pamphlets into the earth, but succeeded only in killing the fire. He dumped gas over the unburnt paper and lit it again.

When he returned to the house, Botree sniffed at the smell of gasoline and carbon, but said nothing. They ate and played a board game with the kids. Later, after the boys were asleep, Frank’s voice crackled over the air.

“This is Camp Megiddo on the mountain with an urgent message to all patriots in Montana. We have an army to protect your family. The blue-helmets of FEMA are coming. The black helicopters are coming. The yellow-bellied bastards took your guns and now they want your land.

“When David fought Goliath, he said, ‘I shall strike you down and cut your head off and leave your carcass for the birds and wild beasts.’ We shall be victorious in the name of the Bill of Rights.”

His voice stopped. Botree and Joe stared at each other in the sudden silence of the house.

“Do you think he’s got an army?” Joe said.

“Maybe. A lot of people go along with him.”

“If the government thinks, so, he’s in trouble.”

“We all are.”

They went to bed, and for a long time Joe stared at the ceiling, wondering if she was right.

The morning sky was thick with smoke. Joe missed working, and he decided to forage the nearest timber for winter firewood. He wore his pistol and carried a bungee cord for a tourniquet in case of an accident. He used the ax the way his father had taught him., letting its weight perform some of the work. The pine split easily, each chip scenting the air. He gathered kindling against his body and carried it to the pile beyond the treeline. His leg ached and he limped. A man’s voice spoke from the woods.

“I see you, Virgil Caudill.”

Joe stopped moving. He felt an unmistakable relief.

“Turn that wood loose,” the man said.

Joe let the kindling drop.

“Set down right where you’re at.”

Joe eased to the earth. The hard weight of the pistol pressed his back Brush rustled and a young man stepped from the woods, aiming a rifle at Joe. Everything about him was familiar. His features were of the same rough mold as Joe’s, the Scots-Irish pioneers who’d settled the hills of eastern Kentucky. His face was too young for a beard.

“I’m Zack Stargil’s boy, Orben. You killed my cousin.”

His accent was a comfort. Joe felt as though he’d been temporarily deaf and had suddenly regained the ability to hear. He knew several Stargils. He recalled the man as a redheaded boy, the last of a long line of brothers. Little Stubbin, they called him.

The man spat and moved closer, squinting over the rifle sight. Joe was surprised that the gun was an old.22. He lifted his chin.

“You best speak while you still yet can,” Orben said.

Joe swallowed and licked his lips.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“You ain’t the boss of me,” Orben said. “And I ain’t in no rush.”

He moved sideways to the pile of wood and sat on an upturned log. He was very skinny.

“Did you talk to Billy any?” he said.

Joe shook his head.

“Just killed him in his sleep.”

“He was awake,” Joe said.

“Know who I am yet?”

“Little Stubbin.”

“They don’t call me that no more.”

Joe nodded.

“My cousin seen you driving a truck here. He works for the state, fighting fires out of Menifee County.”

Joe nodded.

“He didn’t say nothing about you having a bad leg. What happened?”

“Bullet.”

“Billy get one in you?”

“No.”

“You scared, Virgil?”

“Maybe.”

“Was Billy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I ain’t,” Orben said. “For your information, I ain’t scared one bit. You smoke?”

“No.”

“Me, neither. Cigarette does.”

Orben laughed and pulled a cigarette from his pocket without removing the pack. He lit it and inhaled, keeping his rifle aimed at Joe.

“I bet you never thought anybody’d find you,” Orben said.

Joe shrugged.

“You were pretty smart. They was all kinds of stories. The biggest was you going to Myrtle Beach.”

“I don’t reckon.”

“They found your car in Cincinnati and Marlon went and got it. It caught on fire one night, accidental on purpose.”

“Is he okay?”

“Hell, yeah. Nobody bothered him. You can’t hurt that big bastard anyway.”

The sun had moved past its noon spot in the sky and smoke came filtering from the west. Conifers surrounded the men with a wall of green.

“How’s Marlon doing?” Joe said.

“He opened up a muffler shop down on The Road. By God, they say he’s the best in the county.”

“He said he wanted to, but I never believed it.”

“That son of a bitch can weld. Looks like a line of sewing thread when he’s done.”

“Well,” Joe said. “How about Sara and the kids?”

“Same I guess. I never see her out. Them kids are fine, you know. Just growing.”

“And Mom.”

“She died.”

“How?”

“In her sleep.”

Joe stared at the dirt, his mouth clamped tight.

“I’m sorry,” Orben said. “She never done nothing to nobody.”

“Thank,” Joe said. “What about Abigail?”

“Took off. Some said she went with you and some said she was pregnant. I heard she went up to Detroit.”

“She’s got people up there.”

“So do I,” Orben said.

“Me, too.”

They looked at each other, trapped by the intimacy of meeting in a foreign world.

“Didn’t you work at that car plant in Georgetown?” Joe said.

“Damn sure did, building them little rice-burners till I couldn’t take that drive no more. Hundred and fifty miles a day. I got on at Rocksalt Maintenance. Landscaping crew.”

“I’ll be go to hell. I used to work there. You don’t know Rundell Day, do you. Boss of garbage.”

“He retired. Old boy named Taylor’s crew boss now.”

Joe began to laugh, a harsh sound in the still air of the woods. Taylor had gotten Joe’s old job, drew a salary, and wore his name on a shirt.

“Taylor was the biggest drunk on the crew,” he said. “He got so drunk he’d apologize for things he never done. That old boy ran on whisky.”

“Not no more. He got hisself saved now. Carries a Bible in the truck. Nobody wants to work with him the way he carries on. Only man who will is his cousin.”

“Old Dewey. I bet he’s the same.”

“He ain’t likely to change.” Orben chuckled. “Was he engaged when you were there?”

“No.”

“He’s going with some girl from Pick County. It’d take two men and a boy to keep up with them. They’re broke up one day and getting married the next.”

“Pick County.” Joe shook his head. “What’d he think he was doing over in there, I’d like to know.”

“Getting about what he deserves.”

Orben and Joe laughed together until it trickled away, leaving an awkward space of time. Orben adjusted his cap and lit another cigarette.

“Grade school’s closing,” Orben said.

“Ours?”

“Yeah, buddy. They’re already building a new one halfway to town. Remember that bunch of trailers called Divorce Court?”

“Yeah, I used to pick their garbage up.”

“Well, they’re all tore out. And that’s where the new school’s going in,”

“By the drive-in?”

“That’s gone, too.”

“Anything else?”

“Post office shut down. Zeph, he retired, and down it went. I always liked him.”

“Me, too,” Joe said. “Reckon how old he is?”

“I don’t know, but he’s up there. Don’t he look like a turtle to you?”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “I never thought about it, but he did. The way his head set on his neck. How about the bootlegger?”

“You won’t believe it,” Orben said. “They’re trying to get bars in town now, and all the bootleggers are glommed up with the preachers to fight it. Go to church and there’s a bootlegger on the front row, like a hen trying to lay a goose egg,”

“You just know the bootleggers are giving them money.”

“Shoot, yes. Every church in the county’s got a new air conditioner and fresh gravel.”

“Who they calling for to win?”

“It’ll go wet if the college kids vote. The whole fight’s over keeping them out.”

Joe wondered if they’d build new bars, or convert stores to taverns. People who drank in cars might prefer to stay away.

“You’d not know town, Virgil. Eight here lately, there’s talk of building a bypass.”

“A bypass of what?”

“Main Street.”

“Where would it go?”

“They want it to run alongside of Main Street, back toward the creek.”

“Why the hell would they do that?”

“Takes too long to get through town. Funny thing, they want to put traffic lights on the bypass. Pretty soon they’ll need a bypass for the bypass.”

He laughed and Joe grinned, The world had passed Rocksalt by for a hundred years, and now the town was going to make it easier.

“Town,” Joe said. He shook his head. “I’d still yet rather sit in the woods any day. Even if they ain’t my woods.”

“Only thing Rocksalt’s good for is getting out of.”

Again a sense of unease entered the air between them. Wind carried the smell of juniper and spruce from deeper in the woods.

“What happened to my trailer?” Joe said.

“Marlon sold it. That’s how he started his muffler shop. They say the people that bought it draws the biggest government check in Blizzard.”

“They got a bunch of babies, or what?”

“No, nothing like that. There’s just the two of them. It’s the crazy check I reckon.”

“Is there anything else gone on without me?”

“You can get Ale-8 all over the county now.”

“I’d give twenty dollars for a bottle right now. You ain’t got one, do you?”

“Not on me, I sure don’t,”

Joe’s leg hurt and he shifted position to stretch it across the dirt. Orben tensed at the movement, gripping the rifle. The woods were quiet Sunlight spread through the tangle of pine boughs.

“Ever hear anything on old man Morgan?” Joe said.

“Don’t believe I know him.”

“He went deep in them woods past Sparks Branch and set down a long time back. Supposed to have killed a bunch who worked in the old clay mines.”

“I heard that story. My mamaw used to tell me if I didn’t act right, he’d get me. It’s bullshit.”

“He’s real,” Joe said. “He told me you’d come.”

“I don’t reckon.”

“Not you, by name. He said if I shot Billy, there’d be somebody to come. Said they always would be. Said as soon as you Mil one man, you got to kill more. Said it wasn’t no easier either.”

Orben watched him without moving, his hands tight on the rifle.

“You ain’t talking me out of it,” he said.

“I’m ready to die. Half my family’s dead and I can’t go home. Same thing’ll happen to you. If you go back, somebody’ll sneak up on you. Same as you done me.”

“Damn straight, Virgil.”

Orben lifted the rifle to his shoulder. It was a battered Remington, good for squirrel, rabbit, and beer cans. Ty wouldn’t stock it.

Joe’s voice was soft, as if speaking to himself.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I never done it. When I first got here I thought it was the same as Kentucky only the hills were taller. But it ain’t. You’re the first person in a year I talked to who knows how I was raised — start right in talking and tell everybody everything all the time. These people out here don’t say much.

“It’s like my world got a hole in it and all the life run out. I can’t walk on land and know I’ve walked it a thousand times. I miss coming up the creek and seeing my home hill setting there waiting on me. I miss being in the woods bad. Hunting ginseng and mushrooms. I ain’t seen a lightning bug in a year, or dew either. The colors here don’t change much. The hills stay dark green, then get white in winter and back to dark. There’s no songbirds or whippoor-wills. I could eat a mile of soupbeans and cornbread. I miss pork something awful. I don’t reckon they ever heard of a hog out here.

“I miss my family most. Mom. Sara and them. I miss Boyd, too, even dead. He didn’t leave no tracks in this country. Out here the only place he’s alive is inside my head.

“I miss Virgil Caudill,” he said. “Who the hills made me into. This land’s not mine. It’s great to look at, but it’s not part of me. The house I live in isn’t mine. Even the kids aren’t mine. Everything I’ve got is left over from somebody else.”

Joe inhaled deeply and held the air in his lungs as long as possible. He could talk all day. Orben cleared his throat. He moved the rile until it lay across his lap, aimed into the brush.

“I knew Boyd,” Orben said. “All my buddies did. He was sure something to us. Even my mamaw liked him. She used to say the truth must be in him, because it ain’t never come out yet.”

He flicked the safety shut behind the trigger, a snapping sound that hung in the air. Joe realized that Orben might not shoot him and felt a dim pang of disappointment.

“I never did like Rodale,” Orben said. “They was some said he got what he deserved. Said they seen it coming when he was just a tad-whacker. My great-uncle said it would have happened sooner in his day.”

“Who was that?”

“Shorty Jones.”

“Lives on Redbird, don’t he.”

“Yes,” Orben said. “He raised me part way up. He don’t know I left, and he don’t know I took his gun. When my cousin called me, coming after you sounded like fun. I just jumped in the car and took off, but I didn’t like them flat states. You can drive all day and not get nowhere. It made me nervous. Every time I stopped for gas I wanted to lay down to keep from tipping over. I don’t see how people can get around on land with no hills to go by. You’d need a map just to find the store.

“By God, I was five days and three hundred dollars getting to Butte and then my car broke down. I saw the biggest mine hole in the world, I mean big, Virgil. Makes ours look puny. A rough-seeming people but they treated me good. I sold my car and took a bus to Missoula. Wrapped my rifle up in cardboard and put it over my head like it wasn’t nothing.”

“How’d you get down here?”

“Walked.”

“All the way from town?”

“I couldn’t hitchhike packing a rifle. Nights sure throw a chill.” Orben gazed around the somber woods of cedar, spruce, and fir. “I don’t see how you’ve lasted this long, Virgil.”

“I didn’t have much choice.”

“I seen pronghorn by the road out here. Antelope, too. And elk. They got buffalo?”

“I never saw none,” Joe said. “Why don’t you come up to the house and get something to eat.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I got a sandwich right here. Baloney on light bread, and there’s coffee in a thermos.”

“Now, no.”

“Half, then,” Joe said. “It’s in that poke setting on top of the woodpile.”

Orben propped his rifle on a log and opened the sack. He ate most of the sandwich in three bites before offering the rest to Joe, who shook his head.

“You got to,” Orben said.

He passed the food to Joe and poured coffee into the plastic lid of the thermos. He lit a cigarette.

Joe changed the position of his legs and reached behind his back. The pistol grip was cold in his hand. He began easing it free of the holster. He thought of the holes in Rodale’s face, of Morgan living alone like an animal in a lair. He’d killed Rodale for his brother, but he couldn’t kill for himself. He released the gun and sat straight.

“Back bothering ye?” Orben said. “I know how that is. I slept outside the last two nights. There’s a knot in my hip like somebody drove a nail in.”

“I got something for you,” Joe said. “It’s in my pocket, so don’t get nervous.”

“Shoot, takes more than you to make me nervous.”

Joe tilted sideways and pushed his hand in his pants pocket and removed the belt balancer that Morgan had given him. It was the last thing he owned of the hills. He tossed it to Orben.

“Know what that is?”

“Belt balancer,” Orben said. “Uncle Shorty made a many till his eyes went. This is a nice one. Poplar, my opinion.”

He threw it in an arc that landed in Joe’s lap, Joe held the piece of wood in his palm, surprised that it had returned so rapidly, like a boomerang.

“Reckon what I’ll tell them in Blizzard,” Orben said.

“I don’t know. Maybe the truth.”

“Yours or mine?” Orben said. “Damn, this coffee’s good.”

“Best way is not to say nothing. They’ll think the worst for a while, then they’ll forget about it. You can’t get in no trouble that way. I used to think a good lie was close to the truth. Now I think it’s not saying a word. That way they make up their own lies.”

“They always said you was smart, Virgil.”

Orben placed the thermos on a stump and stood. He lifted his rifle until its barrel aimed at the sky.

“See you, Virge,” Orben said.

“Don’t run off.”

“Anybody you want me to howdy for you?”

Joe shook his head. Orben walked to the edge of the clearing. Joe slowly stood.

“Hey,” Joe said.

Orben turned, his expression wary. The rifle lowered slightly. Joe wanted to memorize the way he looked, a final image of home.

“What was it Boyd did,” Joe said, “that made Billy shoot him?”

“I don’t know,” Orben said. “I surely don’t.”

He stepped into the woods and disappeared among the brown trunks and drooping lower boughs of the trees.